Lake Manly arithmetic...

[DeathValleyDazed]

Clearly, there's some nuance there with how the lake itself would reduce evaporation by being a heat sink and creating local humidity etc etc…. but I think it's a good demonstration of how dramatically the climate needed to shift over a few thousand years for that to happen! We think that the lake completely disappeared a few times before the modern day, but it was about 30 feet deep for a while about 2,000 years ago, and there are numerous ancient habitation sites along the shores of that particular lake stand.

Thanks for the provocative thread. Any way of calculating the salinity curve to coincide with the evaporation rate? 

In the meantime I'll keep an eye our for those 30 feet depth shoreline inhabitation sites during my future stumbling about the area. If I set up a long term campsite and tent in just the right spot I'd have Lake Manlyfront property.